In today’s student-centered, inquiry-based math classroom, students are most often working in pairs or in groups to solve problems. For the students, and for myself as a teacher, it often got dull just working with seat partners or letting them pick partners. Sometimes you want to group students up in a new and interesting way. There are a lot of great partnering ideas out there, but many are designed for elementary or language arts classrooms. As a math teacher, I wanted a mathematical but creative way to group my students.

So I created mathematical partnering cards. I’ve put them on my Teacher Pay Teachers site (actually it’s the only thing up there right now). They are in a Word document, so if you want to edit them, add to them, change them for your own classroom, feel free! Here’s how you use them once you download them:

How to create the cards:

Cut out the cards

Mount each card on colored paper or cardstock (this just gives it a little more weight and helps it hold up longer, and look cuter)

Laminate (if possible - again, holds up longer)

How to use the cards:

Pick which set of cards you want to use (depending on how many students you want in a group)

Mix them up in a hat / basket / etc. and let the students each blindly choose one

Depending on how big of a group you want, use either part of this set up to the whole set

Example: use fractions and decimals for pairs; fractions, decimals, and percents for groups of three; all four for groups of four

Example: ½ will match with 50%, 0.5, and 2/4 to form a foursome

One-step equations and answers (for pairs)

Example: x + 1 = 21 will match with x = 20

Complementary and supplementary angles (for pairs or groups of three)

Example: 44 will match up with 46 (as complementary angles).

If you want a group of three, 44 also matches up with 136 to make supplementary angles

Note: This one should use color coding construction paper to differentiate between the original angle, complementary angle, and supplementary angle

This process of partnering has many benefits. First, it makes partnering quick and easy, and since the students draw cards at random there’s no opportunity to complain (“You always put us together…”). Second, you can reinforce mathematical concepts that students have recently learned, or learned in years past. Third, it encourages mental math and memorization of common math facts.I hope you can find these useful! Do you have any other great partnering activities for your math class?

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This Blog

Many of my best ideas I have borrowed from other fabulous educators. This blog is a place for me to share what I have done, in the hopes that someone else can find it useful in their own practice. In addition, I use it as a space to reflect on the issues important to those of us in the education field.